Purchased an Audi A6 3.0T 3 and a half years ago.
After two months of ownership I realised that it had an oil usage problem. 500 miles per litre of oil.
I've cajoled it and pampered it all the while as it is such a fantastic and very fast car.
This year it developed an extra rattle/ticking when cold.
A month ago I gave it a service with engine flush to see if that helped. no.
Yesterday it decided to chuck in the towel.
On a spirited drive and while free wheeling the engine seased and I didn't realise until I approached a S bend. Managed to get round with no power steering and park up.
It wouldn't start ov. Sounded like a flat battery but I knew it wasn't. AA man tried to jump it off ro no avail.
So what do I do now.
Current engine has covered 130000 miles. A replacement engine that's done 50000 miles will cost £3000. Should be able to do it myself but would need a hoist.
I can get a 2010 Saab estate 2.0t petrol for £3500 with 80000 miles on the clock.
But if I replace the engine the car should be worth close to £6000.
Cost is a bit of an issue for me at the moment as I'm furghloued until at least July.



Any advice welcome.

[Edited on 25/5/20 by roadrunner]

Sorry but I'd ditch the car in a nano second

I've had 2 SAAB's their utter sh$te and was very glad to see the back of them

How valuable is the car as is?
Balance that against spending 3k plus your time. Will you be much less that the 6K it is (or was...) worth?

That should sort that issue.

I'll be honest, buying expensive older cars is a real lottery. expensive (when new) cars tend to develop expensive issues. You may as well buy a 10 year old mondeo, save a stack of cash and know stuff is usually cheap enough to fix. My 2p worth.

I loved my Saab Aero, best car I've had in a very long time. No problems at all, great fun to drive (for a Vauxhall). The only reason I got rid of it was the fuel bill, but given that you're already starting with a 3 litre Audi I'm guessing that's not an issue!!

But even though I'm a fan of Saab, I'd still look for an engine swap for the Audi. Better the devil you know and all that. Just check the work involved, I've seen some Audi engine swaps and they look pretty horrible. And see if you can get a warranty for the engine, or at least it's history.

Thanks for the info fellas.
I am leaning towards the replacement engine. I know I'll have a better car when complete.

Anyone know of a good supplier.

[Edited on 25/5/20 by roadrunner]

Hi Brad
Try u pullit. At full Sutton near York
Graham

£3000 for replacement engine?

If you go that route, and do it yourself, you're gonna have to lift it out in which case you can strip it down to see what needs doing. It may work out cheaper to recondition and rebuild it and youll end up a better engine.

Cheers jacko, I'll try them out.

If I go for the rebuild, I will end up in territory that I won't fully understand.

There is a company in Hull called "Yorkshire Engine's " that might be able to rebuild it for less.

quote:

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Originally posted by roadrunner

If I go for the rebuild, I will end up in territory that I won't fully understand.

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I believe the oil issue was stuck piston rings.
Compression checks showed a good piston was 150psi one at 85 and the average at 125 psi.
Oh, it's a supercharged petrol.
Hence the fast bit. It was pushing nearly 450 horse's.

Just to add my tuppence worth...

I've sold off cars in the past due to impending repair or maintenance costs and regretted it. I once sold a Leon Cupra Mk1 because it was due the timing belt and water pump service plus needed new brakes and an oxygen sensor. Before that, I got rid of my SEAT Alhambra because it needed a new auxiliary heater unit at £650 or so. At the time these costs seemed prohibitive but I've come to realise that depreciation costs are far more insidious than repair and maintenance in most cases, and also the "better the devil you know..." principle applies. So, now I am much more likely to stick to repairing and maintaining a car I know well rather than spinning the roulette wheel and hoping to be luckier with the next car.

I would also challenge cliftyhanger's point about not buying expensive older cars because I've spent the last 7 years with a BMW E61 535d which I bought in 2013 as a 4.5 year old car for £16k when it originally cost £45k+. The cost to maintain that car over those 6 years was way less than the depreciation I would suffer from buying a less expensive (when new) car which was less old.

As I've mentioned on another thread on the forum here, sadly in Feb this year someone hit my original 535d from behind and pushed me into the car in front which made the car a Cat S write off so I bought another car of the same era for £8250 which originally cost close to £60k (£13k more factory options). I still have the original car which I bought back from the insurance and have already got it ready to go back on the road with second hand parts to repair the damage. It just needs painted now.

Anyway, so far the new car has been mostly fine with a few gremlins needing fixed which I think are fairly typical of the sort of things you might expect to have to fix on such a car. Including:

1. Replaced engine thermostats (common issue - I did this on the other car too)
2. Replaced heater fan motor which was noisy
3. Replaced gas strut on rear hatch
4. Replaced small plastic gear in electric seat to restore thigh support function
5. Had iDrive car computer refurbished (common issue in 10+ year old cars due to failing solder under BGA chip)
6. Full service inc oil/air/cabin filters and fresh oil
7. Aircon recharge (more a precautionary step since it didn't appear to have been done before)

I always use BMW genuine parts and in my experience the costs aren't significantly higher than genuine parts from any other manufacturer. It's mainly BMW labour charges which make the cars expensive to maintain. Cotswold BMW offer discounts to forum members on a few BMW related forums with free delivery etc so if you're willing to do the work yourself then the costs are no big issue. I also find the cars are nicer to work on than a typical car. The biggest cost so far was the £450 to get the iDrive repaired and this was done by Revtronic of Bradford who provide a 12 month warranty with the expectation that the iDrive should work fine for another 5-10 years since the reflowing of the solder should be basically as good as new.

So, depending on how you look at it, the above might seem like a lot of work but apart from the iDrive repair, most of it is basic service/maintenance stuff and didn't cost the earth. And in fact, many of the jobs were done just because I like to proactively maintain my cars rather than waiting for things to break, and I like to use genuine parts. If you can tolerate a slight noise from your heater motor and slightly less cold zircon then those jobs didn't need done. Same thing for the electric seat issue if you don't mind manually adjusting the thigh support and with the gas strut which just made the tailgate a bit heavier than it should be.

However, I would never recommend anyone scrimp on servicing a high end but older car because it has a habit of coming back and biting you later. You just need to embrace the fact that you need to maintain the car and that costs a certain amount of money but the result is that you get to drive a "£60k" car for the annual outlay equivalent to the depreciation of an average new saloon or hatchback. If you enjoy working on your car then it's a no brainer IMO.

[Edited on 27/5/2020 by craig1410]

I've ordered my engine. £3300 46000 miles on the clock.

Audi engine removal

Audi engine removal 2

Just need to get the old lump out.

quote:

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Originally posted by roadrunner
I've ordered my engine. £3300 46000 miles on the clock.

Audi engine removal

Audi engine removal 2

Just need to get the old lump out.

---

All Audi V6 engines have cam chains and are supposed to last the as long as the engine. But having said that, the tensioners have a tendency of breaking and you end up with chain rattle at start up.
You can only change these with the engine out.
My old engine had done over 130000 miles and had no rattle.

Update.
I've had the replacement engine on order now for over 3 weeks.
It's been fully paid for but the supplier has been very difficult to deal with. I've been chasing him to send it out for delivery.
He eventually told me today that his yard had dropped the engine while lifting it. He didn't know the extent of the damage or even if there was any so I cancelled and managed to get a refund.
Because the engines are difficult to get hold of and bloody expensive. The ones I can get now are £4000 plus(I can get a Bentley w12 with 50thou on the clock for 3k) I've decided to give up on it and put the money towards a replacement car.
But what shall I do with the old one.
Just scrap it.
Sell it as a possible concern.
Or sell all the bits cheap on ebay. I've had a rough total and I'm upto £4400 so far.
What does the collective think.

Sorry to hear your problems. I'd break the car up and sell it as parts on ebay or gumtree.

Thanks Mr Whippy.
I think it's the best option but swmbo not too keen on that idea.
How do scrap yards operate these days.

Currently in Sussex, scrap Value for cars is pretty well nothing, as friend has an old skoda, with a blown engine, and cant even give it away

Personly, if I had the tools, and space, take the the engine out and see whats wrong before breaking the car up

Just taking the heads off would indicate if the pistons are mashed up,

Your first post didn't really indicate that the problem causing the high oil consumption had been identified. Did you do a compression test? Was it blowing out smoke? If it has a turbo or two are they leaking and maybe the engine was fine.

Then you said it seized but are you able to turn the engine with a wrench if so it probably isn't. If you drain the oil check if there's any metal in it. With an engine that complex it could have been anything. Unless you literally ran the engine out of oil I just can't see it seizing

It was using oil but I couldn't see any smoke.
Compression test at the time was around 125psi.
After some Italian tuning, decent flushes and piston top soaks I was getting close to 150psi.
Just before it let go I'd given it a full flush and piston top soak again as cylinder number 1 was at 85 psi.
After the engine let go I checked the oil level. It was higher than it should of been. There is a possibility that I put too much oil in even though I was checking as I topped it up.
When I emptied the oil there was no metal in it.
I could of got an engine specialist to look at it but decided against it as I didn't want to pay them only to find out that I needed a replacement.

There is an Audi V6 ACK engine for sale on FB this evening ,in the kit car and parts for sale section. seems a bit cheap , don’t know if this would be any good for your car?

Thanks but wrong engine.

Off it goes

Off it goes to make way for the next one.